


Surviving

by leiascully



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Loss of Parent(s), Minor Character Death, X-Files OctoberFicFest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-27
Updated: 2016-10-27
Packaged: 2018-08-29 11:39:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8487883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: "I'm the last surviving Mulder, whatever that means."





	

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: "Sein Und Zeit"  
> A/N: For a tumblr prompt.  
> Disclaimer: _The X-Files_ and all related characters are the property of Chris Carter, 1013 Productions, and Fox Studios. No profit is made from this work and no infringement is intended.

She had knelt beside him, held him as he folded in on himself like an empty bag. She hadn’t had to autopsy him then to see that his heart was raw and swollen. She thought of the stillness of the body after death, the logical end to a lifetime of the body’s organized systems drifting towards chaos. Teena was silent in the cold morgue drawer. Her body had not extinguished itself. Out, out, brief candle: Teena had snuffed her own flame. Some misery had grown too great to bear. She might reveal some few of her secrets to the pathologist’s records, but never the ones that mattered. Mulder would blame himself for that.

At least he wasn’t silent. He shivered in Scully’s arms. He sobbed out all the sorrows of his lost innocence. Once, long ago, he had been the beloved son of a fond family. She shed a few tears herself for that lovely history, burned out of existence by a bright light, nothing left of their warmth but the charred edges of the hole where Samantha had been. Bitter herbs, bitter ashes. Still, he had loved his mother. Scully knew that. He had tried to mend the frayed ends that bound them so loosely together and she had refused. He would blame himself for not going to her in her hour of need, as if he could have known. Scully wrapped herself around him and let his tears soak her jacket.

“They’re gone,” he said later, when he had cried himself to exhaustion, his voice rusted and raspy. “Everyone is gone except me.”

She rubbed his back and smoothed his hair off his forehead. “The fact that you’re here means they’re not gone.”

“I’m the last surviving Mulder,” he said. “Whatever that means.”

“It means what you make it mean,” she told him.

“I don’t think it can mean anything,” he said. “Except that I’ve failed all of them.”

“When my father died, I struggled,” she told him. “And when Missy was killed. I couldn’t place myself precisely in the world without the context of them. I know you understand that.”

“You still have Maggie and your brothers,” he said. “You still have cousins. If I were gone, you wouldn’t be completely alone.”

“Yes,” she said slowly, “I would be.”

He glanced at her and looked away. She cupped his face in her hands. His cheeks were gritty with stubble. When she looked at him this time, he held her gaze.

“It’s okay to feel adrift,” she said. “But Mulder, no matter what, you’ll still have me.”

“I’ve nearly lost you before,” he said.

“I came back,” she said. “I will always come back, Mulder. I would haunt you if I had to.” That earned her a ghost of a smile, all he could manage. Her thumbs brushed over his cheeks as they stared at each other in the dark.

“You are my context,” she said at last, when the pressure of what went unsaid between them had built to bursting. You’re my anchor.“

“My touchstone,” he said, stroking her hair.

“Yes,” she said, and leaned into his kiss.

Hearts always made promises that minds and bodies could not keep. She knew that ending was the logical result of any beginning, and yet, that night, as she clutched him fiercely close, she believed in eternity, and she knew he believed it too.


End file.
